


Desperate Magic

by BeautifulFiction



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction/pseuds/BeautifulFiction
Summary: Bilbo is left to tend Thorin as he hovers on the brink of death after the Battle of the Five Armies. Is love enough to save Erebor's king, or is this the last farewell?"It reminded him of plucking daisy petals to the litany of loves-me, loves-me-not. Yet nothing so simple as love lay on his mind. He barely dared to think it, but his question was not a matter of the heart. It was more basic, more instinctive, and he couldn’t help but feel that with each strand of hair he tended he was divining Thorin’s destiny."
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 80
Kudos: 501





	Desperate Magic

**Author's Note:**

> For Mim 💖

Bilbo kept out of the way, loitering like a phantom in the shadows of the healing tent. After all, what could a Hobbit do in a situation such as this?

Oin barked orders to elf and man and wizard alike, his voice harsh with desperation. He was a general in a different kind of battle. None of them could see their foe, but they sensed it all the same. Death lingered here, and Bilbo wished he could believe they had the strength to push it back.

‘I do not have power enough for all three,’ Gandalf murmured, his quiet voice cutting through the chaos like a knife. He leant on his staff, his face drawn and his eyes bright with sorrow.

‘You would have us _choose_?’ Dwalin snarled, that strong jaw trembling with grief and fury in equal measure. ‘You ask too much!’

‘Waste enough time, and there will be no choice to make,’ Gandalf warned, raising his voice as the dwarves argued. Balin was shaking his head, tears falling into his beard as he protested. Ori had covered his ears, pulling away from the conflict while Nori jabbed a finger into the palm of his own hand, stating a point that no one could hear.

‘Save Fili and Kili.’ 

Silence. Bilbo had not shouted. In truth, he was amazed he could manage more than a whisper, but they listened all the same. The weight of far too many eyes fell upon him: dwarves he had come to think of as friends stared at him in shock. Even Gandalf’s gaze found him, though in it there was only a deep, haunting well of pity, as if he knew what it cost Bilbo to utter those words.

Bilbo wet his lips, stumbling towards a spindly chair someone had placed near Thorin’s bedside. ‘Anything else… He’d never forgive you for sparing his life at the expense of his sister-sons.’

Oin drew in a shuddering breath, stirring the silence with the rustle of cloth as he nodded. ‘Master Baggins has the right of it.’ He spoke softly, but with a healer’s confidence. ‘There’s little more I can do for Thorin. His fate is out of my hands, but the boys…’ He trailed off with a shrug, making no promises. Still, his message was clear: for Fili and Kili, there was hope.

Pain echoed through Bilbo’s stomach, misery gutting him as he slumped in the seat. Every breath ached in his lungs: life’s flavour bitter on his tongue. He wished he could fight it – rant and rail against the hand fate had dealt for him and Thorin both – but it would do no good. He could only sit here, numb and cold, in the strange oasis of calm that surrounded Thorin’s bedside.

The dwarf looked pale and small on the pallet, his strength spent. Clean bandages charted the hideous wound on his torso, and Bilbo reached out to pull the blankets higher, hiding it from sight and hoping to trap some warmth around Thorin’s frame.

A slick sweat dewed his skin: fever’s sickly curse. It turned the grime and blood upon his face to muck, and Bilbo grimaced in sympathy. Thorin would hate that, if he were awake to complain. Dwarves may be a practical race, able to prioritise, but they were also fastidious. The others, Bilbo noticed, had already taken a moment to wipe away the worst battle-stains. Only Thorin and his sister-sons remained covered in fighting’s filth.

A bowl of clean water and a cloth lay nearby, and Bilbo reached for it without thinking. It felt good, right, to have something to do with his hands. He could not mend Thorin’s wounds, but he could at least do his best to make him comfortable.

Inch-by-inch, he blotted away mud, revealing the pale skin beneath. His short-shorn beard had not suffered too much, but Thorin’s hair was another matter. Blood caked the coarse tresses, and those neat, precise braids had unravelled during the battle’s wrath. If left any longer, the mats would need to be cut out, and Bilbo’s stomach swooped at the notion.

Dwarves valued their hair: it held deep, cultural significance, and to shear it was an action of intense shame. It could thin with age and only add to a dwarf’s respectability, but to cut it?

No, Bilbo had travelled with the dwarves long enough to know it was unthinkable. Thorin had shaved his beard close when he lost Erebor to the dragon: a symbol of his failure. Bilbo would not bring him any further disgrace, not now, when the Lonely Mountain was finally won.

Getting to his feet, he shuffled out of the tent to the fire that blazed just outside. Water bubbled in a large pot over the flames, and he tipped the dirty dregs away before refilling the bowl. Steam rose from its rim, kissing his cheeks and tightening his curls as he bore it back to Thorin’s side.

Biting his lip, he considered his options. He needed to move Thorin further up the cot so that his hair could trail over the top. Making the bedding wet could have disastrous consequences. The others were too busy to help him, their focus locked on Fili and Kili, as it should be. In the end, he had to beckon the two dwarves who stood guard at the tent flap.

If they thought his request odd, they did not mention it. Nor did they look to Oin for permission. Instead, they eased Thorin further up the cot. His head remained supported by the scant mattress, but now any water Bilbo dripped onto his scalp would be far more likely to work its way to the floor.

‘Thank you,’ Bilbo murmured, barely noticing that the two dwarves bowed before they departed. No doubt they were paying respect to Thorin, and Bilbo could only choke back a pained sigh before he began.

Checking the temperature of the water, he soaked the cloth and then squeezed it out along Thorin’s hairline, guiding the droplets away from his face. They dripped pink on the bare earth, and Bilbo placed some rags down to stop the soil turning to mud as he worked. 

He had never touched Thorin like this. There had been moments of comradery: a hand on his forearm or his shoulder, but this was another matter entirely: intimate, even by hobbit standards. Part of him wondered if he overstepped – if this was too much, too familiar – but he did not stop. 

More than once in the past he had considered reaching out to Thorin, to see if the strange heat that lingered in each look could be something more. His courage had failed him every time. Now, at the very last page of their story, he knew it was too late. This was all he had – all he could have – and he tried not to linger on the fact he was as likely preparing Thorin for his grave as anything else.

A sob bubbled in his throat, and he bit his lip as hard as he could, tasting blood. He would rather have the sharp, physical pain than the deep, dark agony of emotion that threatened to consume him. He would not weep. Thorin was brave in the face of overwhelming odds, and Bilbo would not let him down by succumbing to despair.

Not yet.

Gradually, the water he sluiced through Thorin’s hair began to run clean. It took several trips to the cauldron and a number of sodden rags, but finally the last of the blood and muck had been banished, leaving a tangle of wet curls in its wake.

No comb would do. Bilbo couldn’t say how he knew, but the certainty lay heavy in the pit of his stomach. Besides, he would not dare risk it. How many hairs would snap beneath careless ministrations? How many little dishonours and disgraces would Thorin endure? No. He would use his fingers. If he was slow and patient, he could ensure he did not hurt a single hair on Thorin’s head. The dwarf had suffered enough injuries, and Bilbo would not add another – no matter how small.

Looking down at his chapped, scabbed palms, Bilbo bit his lip. Like it or not, his fingers were not delicate enough for the job: not in this state. He needed some oil or something similar, the better the help him touch Thorin’s tresses without them snagging on his calluses.

Oin had plenty of lotions and concoctions, all labelled in neat Khuzdul and Westeron. Those essential to healing were at the dwarf’s side, their stoppers pulled free as he worked. Others sat abandoned on a makeshift bench, the glass bottles agleam. One particularly big one was called Sunstar Oil: pressed from large, yellow flowers. Its fragrance was soft and far from overwhelming. Nor, Bilbo knew, would it harm Thorin’s hair in its use.

Carefully, he decanted a bit into a spare bowl, making sure to leave the bottle within reach of Fili and Kili’s bedsides in case Oin needed it. It shone gold in the bottom of the clay vessel, and Bilbo tilted it to the meagre lanternlight, watching it swirl.

Only when he had reclaimed his seat did he dip his fingers into the rich, creamy pool, rubbing it into his skin. Once his hands gleamed to the eye, he turned back to Thorin and considered the task ahead.

Gently, as if he were handling the most delicate spun silk, he picked up Thorin’s damp hair and pooled it in his lap. It would drench his britches, but Bilbo could not bring himself to care. He was too intent to think of his own comfort. Steadily, working from the ends, he separated out a section and set to work, teasing free the tangles and smoothing away lingering dirt with unflinching dedication.

The few silver strands in Thorin’s hair gleamed in the lamp-light, and Bilbo fought back a sigh. He should have more. More time to gather those white hairs about his head like a crown before he met his maker. Thorin may not be young, but this end still came too soon. Did the Valar not see that? Did Mahal not know it? Thorin may have his flaws, but how could the world turn a blind eye to all his potential? How could the fates take him before his days were done?

It wasn’t fair.

Fury’s heat flash through him, but he did not let it leak out into his touch. That remained gentle and steady. Determined. He forced himself to focus on it, to push all other thoughts away. There would be time to feel later. Time to shout and curse and rage and mourn. For now, he would bend his will to this simple act of care. 

It was that, or fall apart.

He dipped his hands back in the bowl every few minutes, falling into an unwavering rhythm. Before long, it became almost meditative. The rest of the healing tent fell away, insignificant, and the far-flung battlefield faded from his notice. There was nothing but this: his fingers through Thorin’s hair, and the soft hush of their breathing whispering promises neither one of them ever had the chance to voice.

It reminded him of something love-struck tweens did in the Shire. Plucking daisy petals to the litany of loves-me, loves-me-not. Lore would have it that the flower would give you an answer in the last petal to fall. Many a young hobbit had whiled away far too long in the meadows, losing their hearts in old superstition.

Bilbo could almost sense the warmth of the sun on his skin and smell the lush wealth of the grass around him. Yet nothing so simple as love lay on his mind. He barely dared to think it, but his question was not a matter of the heart. It was more basic, more instinctive, and he couldn’t help but feel that with each tress he tended he was divining Thorin’s destiny.

Foolish hobbit. He knew it was nonsense, yet it did not ease the breathless belief that if he could just avoid breaking a single strand, the dwarf would survive. As if, somehow, the threads of Thorin’s life were woven through his hair, and it was Bilbo’s task to unknot the mess of an imminent demise. 

As if he could have so much power over another. As if he could heal when Oin could not.

Tears bit at his lashes, and he paused in what he was doing, his hands shaking too hard to proceed. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he reached for the oil anew, only to find Gandalf holding out a freshly filled bowl for him.

‘Thank you.’ 

His voice cracked with grief and disuse, but none of the dwarves bore comment. He had not noticed them stop working on Fili and Kili – had not observed the minutes bleeding into hours. Time wrote its story in the ache of his back and the dryness of his throat, but it was of no matter. 

‘Are they –?’

‘We can only wait,’ Gandalf looked tired, his face drawn and haggard, but his eyes were bright when they settled on Bilbo, gleaming with something the hobbit could not understand. ‘The dawn will bring us the truth, I feel.’ He tilted his head towards the tent flap. ‘It is a way off yet. You still have time.’

Bilbo rubbed oil over his fingers as he frowned. ‘Time?’

Gandalf smiled and straightened up before digging the end of his staff into the mud at Bilbo’s feet. The ground was softer there, moistened by water and blood. The wood bit in deep, and the crystal at its peak glowed. ‘To help you see,’ he murmured.

Bilbo sighed, too tired to try and discern the meaning in the wizard’s riddles. Besides, he wouldn’t turn aside the extra light, not when it turned the darkness of Thorin’s hair to midnight and the silver streaks to starshine.

‘Bilbo must not be disturbed.’ 

If anyone in the healing tent protested, Bilbo did not hear it. He half-expected the dwarves to tell him to stop – that it was not his place to touch Thorin so, but no one uttered a word against him. Instead, they all seemed to watch him with a breathless sort of reverence, as if they could see something he could not begin to understand.

Only Dwalin moved, shifting to stand between Thorin’s bedside and the tent-flap, his back to Bilbo and his face to the world beyond. The head of his axe touched the floor with a solid, reassuring thud, his palms resting on the haft as he took up his vigil: standing unflinching watch over them both.

It felt ceremonial: like some kind of ritual Bilbo did not understand, but he could not bring himself to ask questions. Instead, he returned his hands to the oil, noting how his skin shone in the wavering glow of firelight and the mage-shine from Gandalf’s staff.

Every time he had cleared a swath of Thorin’s hair from knots, he had let it fall from his lap, hanging free. He had done more than he imagined. More had passed through his fingertips than he’d paid heed, and Bilbo turned his attention to the last few handfuls.

Here, the mess was worse, the strands caught up in a deathly embrace, and Bilbo’s lips pinched in a grimace. It reminded him of knotted scar tissue amidst smooth skin: a legacy of a wound. He would have to be careful – so careful. If he broke a hair on Thorin’s head now he felt his heart might break with it.

All his foolish hopes lay within his hands; his to save or squander.

He focussed on Thorin’s breathing: steady and deep, lost in slumber. Matching it was no easy task. His own body wanted to shake itself apart, to snatch sips of the cold air as worry wound him ever tighter. Delicate tremors ran across his skin, but he paid them no mind. As long as they did not make their way to his stiffening fingers, they could continue their play. A chill was a small price to pay for the honour of tending Thorin so.

‘ – a blanket over his shoulders?’ 

Dori’s question sounded dim and distant, like a murmur heard from three rooms away. It barely registered with Bilbo’s mind, and nor did Nori’s reply.

‘You would risk it? Even if it breaks whatever spell he weaves?’

Dori’s answer was naught but a tight, uncomfortable sound. Not that any of it made any sense. Hobbits knew nothing of magic, but Bilbo did not dare break his concentration to protest. It felt like a web of spun glass hovered all around him, catching him in its fragile snare. 

He walked on a knife edge of his own making. He was the one who had convinced himself to believe in the silly superstition: that Thorin’s survival somehow depended on his tender care. There was no truth in it – none at all – but Bilbo knew he could not risk it. He could not turn his back on this: just in case.

Finally, the biggest tangle smoothed away beneath his tentative touch. A single hair hitched upon his calluses, and Bilbo froze, pausing to extricate it before the fragile thread could snap. Smoothing it down next to its brethren, he blinked before moving on, continuing his endless task.

Outside, night’s shadows began to lose their hold. Black turned to the darkest of blues as a thin, silver crease showed its face at the horizon’s seam.

Distantly, Bilbo was aware that a strange tension had filled the tent. Gandalf hovered nearby like a spectre, never stepping forward to interrupt, but seemingly unwilling to depart. He could feel people observing him. Not just the dwarves, who maintained their steady, silent watch as if they were bearing witness to the turning pages of history, but others, too. He did not know when Thranduil and Bard had taken up the sentries’ posts on either side of the entrance, but now the two of them faced inward, lingering on the threshold as if they did not dare step away.

Once, an audience might have bothered him, but Bilbo barely heeded them. It all felt so distant, as if the healing tent and its expectant atmosphere were little but a wash of ink over his existence. He and Thorin sat removed, occupying their own, silent space. 

Here, there was only the triumph of every stolen breath and every borrowed moment. Bilbo relished it, even as he picked up the last swath of Thorin’s hair, smoothing oil from temple to tip and easing his fingers between the tresses, guiding them down to banish the final, clinging snarl.

And just like that, his job was done.

The first golden gleam of the sun poured across the land, its ethereal glow spearing through the tent flap. For a brief moment it was as if the world held its breath. Then, the tranquillity shattered into a thousand pieces.

A groan from Kili’s bed underscored his brother’s growled curse. Everyone jumped as if lightning had struck the ground at their feet, their voices raised in question and relief, but Bilbo could not spare them an ounce of his attention. He was too focused on the figure before him.

On Thorin’s blue eyes, pained but free of fever’s glaze, watching him as if he were the greatest treasure in all of Middle Earth.

Gandalf was at his side in a trice, reaching out to pluck a single hair from Thorin’s head. He offered neither apology nor explanation as the king and Bilbo both protested. Gnarled fingers seized Bilbo’s wrist, holding his left hand steady as he looped the strand – one of the silver ones, Bilbo noticed – around Bilbo’s fourth finger and tied it fast.

As if he had been living inside the film of a bubble, the world came rushing back in. Not just the noise, but the sensation. Cold, damp air sank its teeth into him, and all the aches of a body bent too long upon its task made themselves known. Bruises droned and hunger clenched in his belly. Nearby, the crystal of Gandalf’s staff flickered and went out, leaving Bilbo to blink in dawn’s honeyed light.

His chest felt tight, his next breath a struggle that failed entirely when Thorin’s groping hand caught his, that grip stronger than it had any right to be as he tugged Bilbo closer and pressed a rough, desperate kiss to his chapped knuckles.

‘Thank you,’ Thorin husked, as if he had just witnessed Bilbo fight every enemy of Erebor all at once and win. ‘Thank you, Bilbo.’

He tried to say he hadn’t done anything, to stammer out the truth, because he deserved no credit for Thorin’s recovery. The dwarf had managed that himself. He had fought off death’s demands as the hours of darkness fled. Bilbo had done nothing!

Yet before he could force out the words, Oin was there flapping his hands, urging them away so that he could get a closer look at Thorin. The old dwarf looked flustered, his disbelief only held at bay by a healer’s practicality. He had spent too much of the night watching and waiting for fate to take its course. Now, Bilbo suspected the healer did not quite know where to start.

Gandalf’s heavy grasp on his shoulders steered him away, guiding him a little closer to the tent flaps. He did not attempt to depart, perhaps sensing that Bilbo would protest. Instead, he crouched, his old knees clicking like dice as he took Bilbo’s hands between his own, firmly rubbing warmth back into his cold, cramped bones.

As he watched, the hair Gandalf had wrapped around his finger seemed to fade. At first he thought it a trick of his tired eyes, but in the passing of a heartbeat, the binding was gone, replaced instead with a faint, white band upon his skin.

‘What did you do?’

‘Me?’ Gandalf asked, his old eyes sparkling with fondness and pride. ‘Very little, Bilbo. I simply anchored the spell.’

‘What spell?’

‘A very old magic,’ Thranduil interceded, shrugging the fine cloak from his shoulders and wrapping it around Bilbo’s back. It was ludicrously big and trailed on the floor, but if the elf minded the damage to the fabric, he made no hint of it. ‘So old that most of Middle Earth does not recall it.’

‘It lives on still,’ Gandalf murmured, ‘in children’s rhymes and fairy-tales.’

And Bilbo thought of the green meadows in the Shire, of plucking daisy petals and whispering wishes that no one but the earth itself could hear. 

Bard pushed a mug of hot, brackish tea into his hands, and he took a sip, trying to chase away the cold that clutched at him. His teeth kept chattering, and he forced himself still as he struggled to get his words out. 

‘I’m a hobbit,’ he said, shaking his head at the wizard. ‘Hobbits don’t do magic. This was you. Your staff. Your spell, or whatever it is.’

‘If it brings you comfort to think so.’

Gandalf’s gentle smile only made him feel dizzy, his skin flashing hot then ice cold. His fingers fell numb around the mug he held, and he barely noticed the splash of scalding tea on his feet as it tumbled to the floor.

‘This way.’

Someone had scooped him up in their arms. Bard, he suspected, carrying him like a child. Most dwarves would bite off his nose for the insult, and a hobbit would at least protest the indignity, but Bilbo could not muster the words. Tiredness consumed him, coating his limbs in stone and setting his eyes alight with pain. Everything had taken on a strange, golden haze, and he only just managed to pick out Gandalf’s reassurances from the general clamour of concern around him.

‘He has exhausted himself, and it is no wonder. Saving a life is no small feat.’

Bilbo tried to argue: he did! He would not have Gandalf singing his false praises! Yet the strength he needed to speak had fled, bled out in the gentle glide of his hands through Thorin’s hair and the long, dark hours of the night. He could not recall when he had last slept. Now, it seemed, he had no choice in the matter.

Slumber found him, and time slipped away, offering no apology for its departure.

The first thing he knew when he awoke was warmth. It covered him from head to toe, lying like the finest of silks next to his skin. His various aches had ceased their song, and weary muscles lay lax, basking in the heat of the body at his side.

‘Master Baggins?’

Thorin’s soft voice rumbled in his ear, close and heart-aching in its intimacy. He sounded as if he worshipped the Valar themselves with his words, and Bilbo could only blink up at him.

The bandage still charted that broad chest, and bruises painted their accusations over his skin. His body bore the truth of battle’s bite, but even so he looked a thousand times better than he had a short time ago. No fever bathed his flesh in its glow, and though shadows of exhaustion pressed under his eyes, his gaze was clear and true.

The healing tent lay peaceful around them, brought to near-silence as night drew its veils once more across the world. He had slept the day away, exhausted in a way he could not understand. The stress and relief of it all, perhaps, taking its toll at last. They were not alone, far from it, but Oin dozed at Fili’s bedside and Thorin’s sister-sons rested in a healing sleep. The sentries at the door were studiously ignoring them, and everyone else had scattered themselves outside, tending to the encampment now that the balance of life and death seemed to have tipped in their favour.

‘Thank you.’

Thorin’s grave gratitude brought a flush to Bilbo’s cheeks. The intensity of his gaze felt like sunshine on the first day of spring: a blessing in itself. Bilbo could not help but feel he has done little to deserve it.

‘I didn’t do any magic,’ he murmured, not sure what Gandalf might have told the dwarves while he slept. He did not know the reason for the wizard’s stories, but Bilbo would not let them stand. Not if he had any say in it.

‘I do not know about any spells,’ Thorin conceded, the wing of one eyebrow lifting. ‘I only know what I felt.’ He reached out, taking Bilbo’s hand in his, entwining their fingers beneath the covers so that their palms pressed together. ‘In the depths of my fever, I could sense your presence. Feel your care as you tended to me. Few dwarves would have had the patience, as you did.’ He wet his lips, glancing away before he continued, ‘You calmed me. Eased my pain when I thought I would find no respite. It is for that which I offer my thanks.’

Bilbo’s flush deepened, burning him up from the inside. He had not realised that Thorin might sense his ministrations, nor comprehend them in the depths of sickness. Not that it would have made any difference. His only regret was that Thorin had been unable to offer his permission to be handled so. 

He huddled deeper in the bed, realising he was still wrapped in Thranduil’s cloak. Beneath that, his clothes were torn and ragged: one of the battle’s many casualties. He must look a right state, filthy and tattered, but Thorin gazed at him as if he had never seen anything more fine in all his years.

Before, that expression would have been hastily concealed, locked behind a mask of friendship before Bilbo could catch more than a glimpse. Now, Thorin hid nothing, and the honest admiration stole Bilbo’s breath away, leaving his heart thrumming in a desperate, heady rhythm of hope.

‘Would you have done the same for anyone else?’ Thorin’s soft question seemed to carry more meaning than the actual words. ‘Would you have cared for another as you did for me?’ 

Bilbo narrowed his eyes, and Thorin faltered. It stunned him, how this dwarf who cowered from neither beast nor battle struggled with his courage in the face of Bilbo himself. Yet Thorin was not to be defeated. He may be riddled with pain, but he still caught Bilbo’s eye again, forcing himself to face the truth of his answer.

‘No.’ There was no hesitation or doubt. Bilbo knew that he would not have done the same for Fili or Kili. It would not even have crossed his mind. Yet for Thorin it had seemed the obvious choice, and holding himself back had not been an option. ‘You – you’re different. I did it for _you_.’ 

He wet his lips, trying to find the words, but they all darted away from him – fish in the shallows – leaving him speechless. It all felt like too much, as if he were full to the brim with his regard for Thorin. A matter of hours ago, he thought he would never get to speak of it – that Thorin’s wounds would claim him and leave Bilbo with nothing.

Now, all that had changed, and he found himself unsure where to start.

Thorin, it seemed, had no such difficulties.

Warm, dry fingertips traced the line of Bilbo’s jaw, holding him steady as Thorin pressed a kiss first to his brow, then to his cheek and, at last, to Bilbo’s parted lips.

Gentle pressure and exquisite heat wiped Bilbo’s mind blank and left him trembling. How long had he thought of this? How many times had he wondered what it would feel like to have Thorin treat him with such tenderness, only to remind himself it was impossible? Now, every dream and desperate hope had come true. 

His fingers curled against Thorin’s bare chest, resting over the steady thrum of his heart and feeling its vibrant rhythm. All the fear of the hours past seemed like nothing but a nightmare, fading to insignificance in the face of Thorin’s strength and vitality. Bilbo had never thought to taste his lips and steal his breath away, yet here he was, his voice catching on a whispering moan of relief and longing all in one.

‘You do not object?’ Thorin husked, pulling back, trying to read Bilbo’s expression, which the hobbit himself was certain could be of little use. He felt dazed and blank, his entire being rewritten as he drew in a deep, sharp breath.

Perhaps, once, he might have withdrawn, might have pried himself from Thorin’s side as memories of the Shire and the home he left behind haunted him. All this mess with the Arkenstone and the battle could not be wiped away in so little time. He had lost Thorin’s trust as surely as Thorin had lost his, but that did not mean it could not be rebuilt, newer and better than ever before.

The madness was gone, the dragon defeated, and against all the odds Thorin and his sister-sons had survived. Bilbo could not turn his back on that: not after he had come so close to losing it all.

‘Definitely not.’ 

Thorin smiled at the certainty of his voice and the way he tilted his head, his chin lifting in defiance. It was not that brash, knowing grin, rare in its own right, but something soft and tender that Bilbo could quite happily spend the rest of his life admiring.

He could not say what had saved them both, what spells Gandalf may or may not have wrought in Bilbo’s name, or what vagaries of fate had brought them to triumph rather than tragedy. Bilbo only knew one thing for sure. Love had its own power, stronger and deeper than any other in all Middle Earth.

And together, perhaps he and Thorin could make something magical.

**Author's Note:**

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